Ships That Pass In The Night
by breather89
Summary: (Originally published on ArchiveOfOurOwn) Sequel to 'Mole'. After the incident with the boys and Crowley, the BAU think about how innocent the Winchesters are, instead of being violent, possibly delusional psychopaths. Except that each of them has encountered the Winchesters before, sometimes unknowingly.


**December 9th 2014**

Rossi sat at his desk, head in his hands.

They'd barely managed to escape from a vicious monster and murderer, one of their own taken hostage and had had to work with two of America's Most Wanted. But they couldn't put any of this down on paper.

Because the vicious monster was an actual demon, they hadn't noticed Reid was gone because a shapeshifter had taken his place and the Winchester brothers were innocent of presumably most of the murders they were pinned down for.

As Rossi leafed through the boys' history, (complied by Hendrickson back in 2008) quite a lot of it prior to 2001 pieced together by spotty school records, he found himself drawn to one of the dates. Looking closer, Rossi realized that he had worked on one of those cases.

Yes, he had worked on the Watertown beheadings with Gideon, nearly a quarter of a century ago. Remarkable, in his opinion, how close they'd been to the supernatural and never knew.

**6th June 1991**

Agent David Rossi looked across at the footage. Some bodies had been found about Watertown, South Dakota, mostly unidentified. Transients had been the logical answer, but a few of them had been locals that had disappeared.

One thing was simple, though; the victims had all been beheaded with one sharp blow each.

Rossi had been with Gideon in Watertown when another victim had disappeared. A possible transient was seen talking to a man with a 1967 Chevy Impala outside the very diner where the FBI agents had been having lunch.

Due to this, Rossi had been a very good witness. But now, as he watched the footage from a second abduction, this time outside the school with the rain pouring down.

Apparently, the officers had a break in the case after a disturbance outside the school that afternoon. It was now six-forty-five and Rossi was unsure why he hadn't been told about this.

At 3.42pm, Rossi noticed from the footage, two little boys were standing at the school's bus stop. That wouldn't have been too unusual in itself, but the school was currently closed for the summer. There was one little kid still missing though; a Jamie McDonald, aged nine, who had been attending summer school five days earlier. Rossi just hoped that he wasn't seeing the last footage of these little guys alive.

When he had said this out loud, the officer sitting down had scoffed.

"What?" Rossi had asked.

"It's not the kids you should worry about." The officer shook his head, eyes wide.

The officer had explained that there had been an audio recording from the bus stop. When Gideon asked why, the officer replied that one of the summer school children had left his tape running in his bicycle, chained to the railings beside the bus stop. The officer had then shrugged when he finished, suggesting he had no clue why the kid had left it on either. Rossi privately told himself that the boy may have wanted to help find his friend, if Jamie had been abducted from the bus stop the day before.

The audio cassette now watched up with the video. A tall man had entered the bus stop. He was wearing a red plaid shirt and dirty jeans and a dark green hooded jacket. Usually this would be someone that children wouldn't think twice about before heading in the opposite direction, but the two boys seemed confident.

The boys then stood up. The older one said, _"We're waiting for our bus, sir. When is it?"_

The man had snorted. _"I'm driving the next bus in five minutes. Just need a smoke. You boys want one?"_

The little one had shaken his head, sipping from a child's water bottle in his hand, slowly slipping behind the older one. The older one then asked, _"Could you please drive us back soon?"_

The man, who had now taken a long draw on his cigarette, asked in an annoyed tone, _"Why?"_

"_Because Daddy left us again,"_ the little boy had found his voice, _"He was drunk again and he can't drive the car."_ He gave out a loud whine and buried his face in his brother's jacket.

"_Sammy –"_ the older boy had hissed through clenched teeth, but the little boy was now whimpering. It was definitely effective, Rossi told himself. He could genuinely believe that this little boy was scared.

The man chuckled, putting his cigarette out. _"Sure, kids. I'll pull the bus around now."_ He had walked away and the little boy had tugged on his brother's sleeve.

"_Dean, will this work?"_ he sounded nervous.

"_Course, Sammy."_ His brother tried to sound confident, but there was a hint of worry in his voice.

A few moments passed and the man drove the school bus around. Rossi frowned as another man had sneaked up on the other side of the bus from somewhere, holding an axe in his hands.

"Oh my god." Gideon had murmured. Rossi could agree.

The video footage showed the bus driver getting off of the bus and grabbing the older boy by the scruff of his neck, lifting him off the ground.

The big boy was kicking and the little boy screaming loudly. But rather than running away or standing in shock or trying to fight, as Rossi would have expected, the little boy had opened his water bottle and threw it at the man.

The man had fallen backwards, letting go of his grip on the bigger boy. His hands were now on his face and he slumped over the bus steps. The second man had now gone around to the steps. The two boys had backed away some feet, the older boy holding his brother close. The man easily sliced of the bus driver's head in one swoop.

Rossi and Gideon jumped. It was one thing seeing a decapitated corpse, another to actually see the death on camera. The man then called out to the boys, who approached, seemingly unaffected by the severed head on the sidewalk, climbing into the bus as their father tugged the jacket from the dead driver, put it on and drove away.

"And all missing victims have been returned to their families?" Gideon asked.

The officer responded, "Jamie McDonald and a few of the adult victims. Jamie's just given his testimony."

Rossi had read little Jamie's testimony from the file, as the child was still undergoing his S.A.F.E examination with a nurse. According to his testimony, Jamie had been grabbed by the hooded bus driver, a usual that summer with bad breath and a smoking habit.

Jamie had been held inside a cage the whole time he was abducted, with some other citizens in the strange basement with him. One woman had been dragged off and he heard her screaming from another room.

That woman had been found by the forensic team, decapitated.

But Jamie said that when the two boys from the bus stop footage (thankfully he hadn't been shown all of it) had arrived, the older one had unlocked Jamie's cage, telling him, "Don't worry; we're gonna get you out of here."

The younger boy had told Jamie to drink from his bottle. Jamie hadn't wanted to, because there might be germs, but the younger boy had spoken in a stern voice that Jamie only heard his teachers use, "If you don't drink it, we can't get you home."

Jamie had taken a sip, as had the three adults in other cages down here. The set of keys that included the cage keys also unlocked the small window leading out to the ground, so Jamie had been pushed out first. One of the adults had tried to push the younger boy out as well, but the big boy had started to argue, saying, "Sammy's more important to your survival." In Jamie's mind, the older boy was acting like a trained soldier, even though he couldn't have been more than twelve.

There hadn't been time, as something had crashed into the basement, shrieking and bearing sharp teeth. Jamie had scooted away from the window, terrified, before the younger boy was pushed out the window begrudgingly. The boy told Jamie to spread salt on the ground outside the window, handing him a salt-shaker from the diner. Jamie had been confused but did what he was told.

After the bigger boy had, with difficulty, managed to pull himself out of the window, the three boys had run away from the building. The younger boy had stopped outside a black car – Rossi later learnt from witness reports that this was a 1967 Chevy Impala – and climbed in the back. There was already a man in the front.

"I don't want to," Jamie had shaken his head when the older boy told him to get in, which wasn't surprisingly, really.

"Don't have time for this, kid." The big boy had groaned, pushing Jamie in the back.

During the ten minute ride back to Watertown, Jamie had pulled his legs up onto the seat, looking between the window and the driver, before looking at the bloodstained axe on the floor of the car.

"Kid, get your muddy shoes off the seat." The driver had snapped.

"Dad! Cool it a little." The younger boy had argued, before asking Jamie, "Are you OK?"

Jamie had nodded, unable to say a word. The last he had seen of the family – the way the man had talked to the boys suggested to Jamie that the man was their father – was when they dropped him outside of the hospital, waited for a nurse to see him and drove off.

Rossi had wondered at the time who this man could be. Later reports of the Winchesters made him think that maybe this could be connected. As with everything else the Winchesters did, this made no sense.

So Rossi had just filed this away under 'unsolved'.

_Only now, he began to suppose that Jamie had been saved from a terrible fate and a different one than what Rossi had originally suspected._

**December 9th 2014**

Rossi related his tale to Hotch, who had come into the office.

"Funny, isn't it?" Rossi had pushed over the iPad with the hard copy of the 1991 unsolved case, "Sometimes you think you'll find the answer, sometimes you don't. But the supernatural? Of course none of us were going to think that." Then he noticed that his friend and colleague was staring profoundly at the still image of the boys. "What is it?"

"Back when I was a prosecutor," Hotch murmured, "I handled a case with Dean Winchester as a witness. I didn't see him, but the Winchester names were on the documents."

"Why didn't you say?" Rossi asked, Hotch looking up.

"Because I didn't quite know their mindset yet. When – the St. Louis stuff was happening, we were on a different case. But when Hendrickson kept obsessing over it, he asked the other teams if they'd ever been in contact. Gideon mentioned this case, since the Winchester boys had been living in Watertown that summer, but I also handed over one case."

Rossi sat back and listened as Hotch recalled what happened.

**November 25th 1995**

Aaron had felt as if being a prosecutor was painstakingly horrible.

True, it was one thing to see the anger and disappointment on a criminal's face when they were lead away in chains to begin a life behind bars. But it was another to see the weeping mothers and wives, the distraught, newly-single fathers, the lonely, conflicted children. To hear the same phrases again and again; 'if the warnings had been out sooner…', 'if we knew what the killer looked like…', 'the cops weren't protecting us…'.

Now, Aaron had decided to join the Behavioural Analysis Unit.

To catch the serial killers before they came back for worse.

This way, he had told himself, he would stop more evil being unleashed.

But this case was his final one before he would start aiming for D.C. He had settled down into his chair behind his desk and leafed through the pile of papers.

A killer had been attacking at motels across the Seattle area. They would enter a room that had been recently booked, hold the occupants hostage for the better part of a night, then rob and bludgeon them to death. Just the sort of thing Aaron knew he'd have to get used to if he went to the East Coast.

But something that seemed to stand out about this killer was that he sometimes left witnesses. Aaron assumed at first it was so that someone could pass on the tale, but a quick look at the reports from the crime scenes suggested otherwise.

There had been five incidents, all victims having survived this last one. The first case had been a man, a woman and their ten-year-old nephew, who had survived. The second had been an elderly man and woman, caught with a Latino maid inside the room, who had also survived.

The third murders were of two men and a woman, the sole survivor being a twelve-year-old girl. The fourth had been of two men, an elderly woman and an eighteen-year-old boy, the survivors being the boy's eight-year-old brother and ten-year-old sister.

None of it had made sense until the Latino maid had been traced back home. She had pretended to be an adult to get a job. In fact, she had only been fifteen.

Aaron was certain that the motel owner hadn't known this piece of information, but somehow the killer had wheedled it out of the girl. The witness reports had been all over the place in addition to all this; he had a beard, he was clean-shaven, he was five six, he was five eleven, he had a scar, he didn't have scars. It was understandable, Aaron told himself as he looked at the final report, fear makes everyone confused and witness reports get muddled.

But as he looked at this last one, he could see that the killer had been stabbed by one of the intended victims. And that victim was a sixteen-year-old boy.

Aaron took another look at the paper to see if the officer on the case had gotten the information down correctly.

The boy – Dean Winchester – had checked in at the motel with his dad and his brother Sam three weeks prior. They either hadn't heard of the recent murders or didn't think they would be targeted.

On September 14th 1995 John Winchester had left the motel room at 5.20pm, according to the motel cameras. He had left in the car, a 1967 Chevy Impala, but didn't give his whereabouts as to that night. He did say that he had gone to a bar called Bamboo a few blocks away and he had certainly gone there at some point in the evening. Investigators wondered if perhaps he had been meeting up with a girl and didn't want to let his boys know.

The killer – a Greek restaurateur called Antonis Dimtriou with a massive confidence issue – had entered the room at 5.50pm. Aaron read from the sheet what had happened after then.

_There was a knock at the door when I turned the TV off. I thought Dad had come back for something and I asked who it was. I heard 'Maintenance – there's a problem with the pipes'. I was suspicious, because Dad told us to never let anyone in, even if we saw a badge. I needed to be careful._

_Please don't ask me why I then poured salt over the entrance. It's – it's a precaution._

_I told Sammy to hide in the bathroom and then stepped back as the door opened. The guy walked over the salt and lunged for me. I screamed, but the guy pinned me to my bed and held a gloved hand over my mouth. At this point Sammy came out of the bathroom and – well, to be honest, officer, he threw a bottle of water over the guy._

_Please, just don't ask. Please!_

_Anyway, the guy was furious and he held the axe blade by my throat. I can tell you, I thought I was gonna die and Sammy would watch. The man told Sammy, "Sit on your bed nice and quietly," in a really harsh whisper. Guy sounded as if he had been gargling nails._

_When Sammy did, pulling his legs by his chest, the man let me go and stood up. The man shut the door and looked about the room, before he yanked the string between the window and the bathroom. You want to know what it was? Well, to be perfectly honest with you, it's – err – well it was the laundry line. The local Laundromat was shut and Sammy wanted clean clothes for school. He'd washed them in the shower._

_The axe man sliced it in two and threw one half at me. "Tie the boy to the bedpost with his hands behind him." He instructed. I was so scared that I did what he said. Just as I'd finished, he used the other half to tie me to my bedpost. Sammy didn't look at me. I thought that he'd be crying, but he wasn't._

_The man asked me when my dad would be back. I said that I didn't know. He was about to punch me when Sammy cried out that we didn't know. The man looked at him funny and then he smiled. His teeth were all yellow and broken. He then ruffled Sammy's hair, even though my brother tried to get away._

_The man had started to search the drawers when Sammy asked, "Are you going to rape us?" The guy looked a little taken aback that a kid had said that, but he shook his head._

"_No, boy." That was all he said._

_I tried to get free, but the cord dug into my wrists. They were covered in blood and sweat by the time the axe man had finished looking through our stuff. I don't think he found anything worth taking._

_He knelt down in front of me and placed a hand on the end of my bed. I could smell the cheeseburger on the son of a bitch's breath. He said, "I saw your daddy in the wood earlier, with a shotgun. Now, I can't find that shotgun so I guess he's taken it with him. But I also saw a wedding ring on his finger." I tensed up. He seemed to revel when I did. "And since I can't see a mommy, I'd say that you three are all alone in the world, aren't you?"_

_He then bellowed in my face, "Answer me!"_

"_Yeah," I nodded frantically, "Mom's dead."_

"_You miss her?" He asked. He seemed genuinely concerned._

"_I was just four," was all I could manage to say._

_He stood up and then sat on Sammy's bed. The mattress sagged and I saw Sammy go very still, looking at the guy out of the corner of his eye._

_The guy was fiddling with the axe in his hands. He held his head to one side and asked, "How old are you boys?"_

"_I'm twelve," Sammy gave a choking sob, "Dean's sixteen."_

_The guy seemed interested. He turned to me and said, "You're lucky, boy, you know that? Because if you were of voting age, you'd be dead."_

_Sam turned his head. I could see how red it was. "What about Dad?" he asked, barely more than a whisper._

_The guy frowned. "Sorry, guys."_

_I strained again against the cord. "Don't you dare hurt him!" I shouted at him. I didn't care what he did to me; all that mattered was getting the son of a bitch and pummeling him._

_The guy ignored us and then started to set a card game out on the table, resting the axe on the couch. I kept glancing at the clock, waiting for Dad to come back and hoping he wouldn't at the same time. It was about an hour after the axe man had barged in that I heard Sam start to cry. Only little sobs at first, but then the guy got annoyed and stood up, throwing his cards onto the table._

_He stomped over, pulling a cloth out of his pocket and started to gag Sammy. But as soon as his back was turned, Sammy leapt up and grabbed at the guy's arms, pulling them behind the attacker's back._

_When the attacker was face down on the ground, Sammy tore the cloth from his mouth and shouted at me, "Kick his face!"_

_I did so. Sammy climbed off and pulled the switchblade from behind the bedpost. I guess it fell from the mattress._

_Remember I said don't ask?_

_As the axe guy held his hands over his broken nose, Sammy freed me, before we both stood up. The guy stood up a moment later and lunged for us. I pulled Sammy close as I dived sideways onto the bed. The guy barely stopped himself from smashing into the bedside table._

_My mind raced as I took the switchblade and held it out as the axe man reached for me again. The switchblade caught in his intestines and he gave a spluttering noise. The both of us stood up as the man slowly bled out on my duvet._

The switchblade hadn't been found. Aaron hadn't wanted to think about what these boys could be doing, living on the road this way. The father came back half an hour later and the motel owner had called the police. The boys gave their testimony and had left the following afternoon.

Antonis had been in intense pain, but he had lived. The pain he had handed out would last a lifetime, though.

It had been two months and the three of them had been found in South Dakota. The boys had been staying at a friend of John Winchester's and Dean had sent over his testimony by video evidence, since they couldn't leave the state.

When the footage had finished, Aaron saw one sentence that hadn't been shown to the court. Dean had mumbled this when the officer that had helped with the video evidence.

"_When it'll be just me and my brother, when we're by ourselves…I have no idea what I'm gonna do."_

When Hotch had finished, he almost bit his lip, just as he had done when he was a child and had been nervous. Sometimes he noticed Jack doing that.

"The Seattle dates," Rossi said what he knew his colleague was thinking, "When we first read that autopsy of a Jane Doe in Seattle…And here was clear evidence that Dean Winchester was in Seattle in 1995."

"I certainly thought so," Hotch muttered, "When the police over in New York said they'd caught the two, I thought, 'This is it'. That the Jane Doe was the key. That we'd find her name, or something or other. Because…Dean Winchester shot his daughter in his motel room. Goodness knows what she actually is."

"You thought about Jack, didn't you?" Rossi asked. Hotch closed his eyes and sighed. He didn't need to give the answer, but both of them knew what it was.

Out at the desks, Morgan's mind was drifting back many years. While he didn't have Reid's brain, he could certainly remember important things from back then.

Things that were too important, as well…

_Morgan forced himself to stop thinking about Buford. He needed to concentrate. He could ask Garcia to look up any unsolved murders that had happened around that time in Chicago, but in his heart he already knew that it had been the boys…_

**3rd August 1989**

Morgan sat on the bench as he waited for his mother to come out of the store. He hadn't wanted to come in because it was yet another clothing store that she was visiting and he was sick of all of that garbage. His mother had once slapped him for saying that. Wasn't he going to be married someday, she had argued.

Morgan hoped that day was a long way off if it meant having to go to these dumb places with his wife.

He'd seen a car come into the parking lot. A man came out of the front, before helping out two children from the back. One looked about ten, his brother six. The younger one was talking excitedly about some school stuff; Morgan didn't hear him very well. The older one seemed more sullen and obedient, standing between his father and brother, one hand in his pocket and the other gripping the end of his brother's sleeve.

When the three of them had entered the store, Morgan realized that he was getting hungry. He'd gotten up and went next door to get a sandwich. He was still eating it when the little boy came out and stopped right beside Morgan. The big boy came out a few seconds later and started to usher his brother towards the car.

The reason that this had stuck in Morgan's head, rather than otherwise be yet another uneventful moment in his life, was that he had seen the man standing outside the restaurant Morgan's older sister worked at. The man had eyed Morgan when the young man came close by. He had been fiddling with something under his jacket. Maybe he recognized him from outside the store.

That very night, Morgan's older sister was late coming home from work. When his mother had been informed that an incident had occurred and the restaurant was in an abysmal state, with the front windows smashed and several customers and employees killed, Morgan instantly thought of that strange man.

Morgan's sister said that she couldn't think back to much of what had happened. Only that a man – his reservation had said Winchester, J – had come in, sprayed some water on her bosses when he went into the kitchen, before there was some black smoke and the next thing she had known, she and two waiters were tied to chairs, a few customers were dead, as were her bosses and a fellow waitress and the man had left.

Morgan gave a description of the man, but they never found any suspects. His sister confided in him something that the papers didn't reveal; the man had drawn something onto the floor with paint. It had been a pentagram with weird symbols around it.

_Morgan had thought back to that day when he first heard of the Winchester case and heard about Hendrickson compiling evidence. Seeing a photo of John Winchester had made Morgan think about that odd man and his even odder little boys. About what sort of father that man could be. And that made Morgan miss his even more. Even if, now he knew the truth, Morgan knew that both fathers would do anything for their children._

Morgan was in the men's toilets when he saw Reid leaning over the sink, pressing his hands on either side.

"You all right, kid?" Morgan asked. In the back of his mind, Morgan told himself that Reid wasn't all right; he'd been drugged and strapped to a bed for over a week.

"Yeah, yeah." Reid mumbled softly. As he stood up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he began to talk.

"When I was mostly asleep – I kept drifting between there, here and my memories, Morgan – I thought about when the whole football team had ambushed me, stripped me naked and duct-taped me to the football goal."

A shiver ran down Morgan's spine as he remembered Reid telling him the first time. "Reid –" he started to say, but his friend then faced him, wide-eyed.

"I didn't say everything that happened. Because when I was there, I saw the Winchesters."

**February 22nd 1994**

Spencer had lost track of time. All he knew was that the – they were gone. The lot of them had run away, laughing and cheering at what – what they had done to him. The bad guys had gone and he was left alone.

Alone on the football field.

Don't – don't let them see you cry. They feed off fear, like leeches sucking away at you. They break you, even if they don't actually hit you, like they did tonight. They trick you, they hurt you, they lead you into a false sense of security. Don't let them win, don;t let them win, don't let them win. You are stronger than them, you can hold yourself together. They're the ones who are stupid. They wouldn't be able to hold down a job once their muscles deteriorate.

And years later you tense inside and you struggle to control your breathing and you get frantic and then…

"Sam?" a voice asks from across the field.

Spencer finally found the strength to look up. The figure came closer, running at first and slowing down when he was close enough for Spencer to see him properly. "You're not Sam," the person – Spencer recognized him as being one of the jocks, the only one that hadn't been on the pitch tonight – held up a flashlight as he approached.

"What time is it?" Spencer managed to croak, as he started once again to try and twist free, just in case the boy wanted to finish the torture. He didn't think his frail body could handle any more.

"It's two in the morning," the jock squinted, "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't ask to be stripped naked and tied to the goalpost, if that's what you mean." Spencer mumbled.

"I could work that out myself," the jock pulled the flashlight back and Spencer could see his face properly.

"You're Dean Winchester, aren't you?" he asked, "You're the only one who didn't come tonight."

"Well, I was kind of busy," Dean moved behind the goalpost and starting cutting Spencer free, "Dad needed me downtown."

"Why?" Spencer asked, somewhere between relief that he was getting free and worry because the guy had a knife.

Dean gave a small chuckle. "Wouldn't believe me if you tried."

The second Spencer was free, he turned around, trying to spot his clothes. They were about eight feet from the goalpost. Running over to them, he eagerly pulled them on. "Why are you here?" he asked Dean, just as he finished putting on his trousers.

Dean shrugged. "My brother said he was going to be at the school tonight. We – he wanted to fix my essays. Because if I don't pass English, I'll have to repeat the year."

Spencer mumbled about getting home. Dean walked up to him as they made their way out through the main gate that lead into the parking lot.

"You can't just go by yourself," Dean argued, "Where do you live?"

"I have exactly seven minutes and thirty-four seconds' walk away if I go at normal walking speed."

Dean murmured something, then asked, "You're that smart kid that skipped several grades, aren't you?" When Spencer nodded, Dean managed a quick smile. "You want to help fix my grades too?" When he took another look at Spencer, he shook his head, still smiling. "Obviously not now."

Then Spencer asked, desperate to get home quickly and away from the jock – kind as he seemed – as possible, "Aren't you going to wait for your brother?"

Dean was about to answer when he heard a voice calling his name. Looking past the older boy, Spencer saw a kid running out of the school doors. He was only ten years old and was wearing an oversized jacket, obviously his brother's. When the kid approached, he simply stared at Spencer, a little wary. Sam's eyes flicked across to look at Dean and he gave a low whisper, although Spencer wasn't really sure why, since he could still hear the boy.

"Did you test him?"

"I already used the knife, he was tied to the goalpost." Dean grumbled.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"OK, I'll do it." Dean pulled a flask from his pocket and handed it over to Spencer. Nervous, Spencer took it in one hand and sipped at it for a few seconds, before handing it back.

"You, err," Dean quickly looked back at the building and then back to Sam, "do the – the thing?"

His brother nodded. Then Sam asked Spencer, "Why were you tied to the goalpost?"

Spencer blushed. Then he murmured that the football team had tricked him. The brothers eyed each other carefully when Spencer had finished. But not just pity or fury. Worry.

Then Sam asked Spencer with wide, puppy-dog eyes, "Did you get a good look at the players?"

Spencer nodded. "Yes."

"Did their eyes turn black?" Sam asked, as if attempting to coax an answer from him.

Spencer was confused. Why would any of the football players have black eyes? He shook his head and then Sam turned to Dean. "Guess you were right with the –"

Dean kicked his little brother on the shin, silently signalling for him to keep his mouth shut. Then Dean glanced back at Spencer. "We're walking you home, kid. No arguments."

"What about you?" Spencer asked as they set off down the block, "What about your home?"

"We live in a motel and Dad's out." Sam gabbled, indicating that he didn't wish to talk about his life. Spencer seemed to understand and the rest of the trip was spent in silence.

When Spencer got to his house and knocked on the door, the two boys were still standing at the end of his pathway, as if waiting for him to enter. Of course they were, Spencer told himself, they're being protective.

Spencer carefully pushed the door open and called for his mother.

He found her in the kitchen, muttering to herself. Approaching her, Spencer asked, "Mom? It's me, it's Spencer."

But he knew she couldn't hear her son. She was having an episode. Turning around and facing the two boys at the front door, he forced a smile at them.

"Everything all right?" Dean called to him.

"Everything's fine," he lied, "Goodbye." Then he shut the door.

When he eventually went to bed and shut his curtains, he swore that he heard the boys talking to themselves from behind the hedge. Spencer told himself that they couldn't get in here, even if they did want to hurt him, which he doubted considering what he had summarized from the two.

The next morning, when he went to school, embarrassed and hurt and desperate to ignore the class for the next fifty-three days he would attend this place and then graduate, he heard whispers as he walked through the hallways. But he didn't hear his name at all. Or any mention of the football team.

Instead, an assembly was called in third period. The principal announced that both the science teacher and one of the janitors had been found dead in the drama classroom. A graffiti pentagram, in the principal's words, had been drawn on the floor and the science teacher had many broken bones.

Spencer would later learn that the broken bones had been due to a presumed tumble down a flight of stairs. But apparently the teacher had gotten up and walked away from this.

When Spencer and his mother were going to the pharmacy for her medication that afternoon, he saw the two boys standing next to a black car. A 1967 Chevy Impala, if Spencer was right and he very nearly always was, at least with whatever facts he had before him.

A man was driving and the younger boy had just gotten inside. The older one seemed frustrated, but a quick instruction from his father and he entered the car as well.

_That had been the last that Spencer Reid had seen of the brothers for nearly twenty-three years. When he had first read of the two brothers killing people, his mind would always go back to the school. He would also wonder why they had bothered to leave a witness behind; him. Reid would tell himself that it was probably because Dean didn't want to kill a kid that reminded him of his brother. But even then, why would he set Spencer free, walk him home?_

"I finally know," Reid explained, his first attempt at a smile in ten days, "You only see the little pieces of a jigsaw," he twisted his hands around in front of him, gesturing, "You only see the picture when it's all together."

"Well that's what our job's for." Morgan smirked.

Inside her office, JJ recalled something, something she had buried deep inside her mind.

Something…unsettling, if only because at the time she had thought it was. But looking back on it, JJ saw that she had actually been lucky.

But not from whom she had first suspected.

**9th May 2000**

JJ had sat outside the dormitory as she fumbled with her keys.

It was the last day of the sophomore year and her roommate was taking ages with packing up her stuff. Her roommate was also a slowcoach and a whiner. JJ was happy that she'd have another roommate next fall.

"Your roommate in?"

She looked up to see a guy standing in front of her. She didn't recognize him, but the college campus was big enough for that to be commonplace.

"Yeah," she slowly backed away on the bench, an automatic precaution, "Stacy's packing up, though."

He smirked. "Course she is." Then he asked, "What's your name, sweetheart?"

JJ wasn't going to answer this strange man. Instead she turned her head towards the door as Stacy came out with another box.

"Hey, Stacy!" The man seemed a little too eager to see her. "It's Dean. From the bar? Dean Winchester?"

Stacy stared at him for a second, before smiling back at him. "Oh, yeah, yeah," she seemed a little unnerved, reaching inside her jacket pocket. Dean noticed and his smile faded.

"How about we have a little talk inside?" he asked, "Away from your friend?"

"If you have anything to say, say it now," Stacy eyed him and raised her eyebrows, defiantly, "JJ stays here."

"It's fine," JJ mumbled, getting up and backing away, "I need to go."

JJ headed around the corner, past a strange black car and squatted behind Stacy's light blue one in the parking lot. She could just about hear the conversation, since the two of them were on the other side of the orange brick wall.

"See? You scared her away." Dean sounded frustrated.

JJ could imagine Stacy scowling back at him. "I told you, Winchester. I wouldn't let my doggies hurt either of you."

"Well, your 'doggies' took my little brother when school broke up. Found one of them by the roadside after I trailed them last night."

JJ frowned. What did he mean by that? Then she heard Stacy barking at him. "You went after them? Did you hurt them?"

"What do you think I did, princess?" Dean snarled back, "Princess of the werewolves."

JJ heard Stacy screaming then. Not, as she would often tell herself, a scream for help, but rather in anguish. JJ peeked over the back of the car as she saw Dean dragging Stacy towards his vehicle, one arm around her throat and the other around her waist. JJ's blood chilled as she saw him push Stacy into the trunk. She was shaking her head, her dark curls flying everywhere and tearing at his clothes with her – as JJ seemed to notice, unusually long – nails, before he succeeded and slammed the lid shut on her.

JJ slowly stood up, her legs wobbling like jello. Dean was now in the driver's seat and had appeared to have noticed her.

He turned his head and locked eyes with her as she took one step back, her scream caught in her throat. He swore and then turned the ignition key before speeding away out of the parking lot.

For days afterwards, JJ would wonder why he simply left her there. She would wonder this even more when the Winchester crimes came to light and she heard that they left no witnesses, or those that did would swear the brothers saved them.

Stacy's body was found just over a week after she had vanished. Stacy had been shot five times after being beaten and someone had left boot prints on her neck, holding her down. JJ didn't want to imagine what Stacy's final moments would have been like.

She had been found inside an old barn a few miles out of town. There was evidence that people had been living there. Possibly with several large dogs, due to the amount of hairs found all over the place. Only one cage, though, with tearing inside from a woolen jacket. It was the only part of the barn not covered in animal fur. Strangely enough, there had been flakes of human skin inside.

According to statements, a family had lived out of that barn. Squatted, more like it, JJ had thought when she saw the crime scene photos some years later after skimming through Stacy's file. Five males, one of whom was possibly thirteen, who didn't attract much attention aside from a few arrests for supposed poaching. Three of the older males were white, one was black and the youngest one was biracial, black and white.

JJ had squinted at the picture of the boy left behind, when she had watched a police appeal. She was certain that he was the same boy she had once seen knocking on her door, asking for Stacy. She was his sister, he had said. Stacy had seemed rather shocked to see him there. Aside from that instance, JJ didn't think she knew anyone from Stacy's family.

JJ had also read that another body had been found some way out in the woods, close to where the family's bicycles were kept. This one was of a woman wrapped in a sheet. The autopsy had said that she was black and had died of pneumonia roughly ten years prior.

But what had unnerved JJ was that this woman had had very large, pointed teeth. Animal fur had also been found on the sheet.

_After looking through the file years later, JJ saw that the human skin from inside the cage had matched to Sam Winchester. A brief inspection of the history of the area showed that about once a year, someone would disappear. Usually an older person or a transient, but three months before Stacy had been kidnapped, another young woman had been taken from the area, her ravaged corpse found by the road near the barn. JJ had originally believed that she was lucky that Winchester hadn't killed her, but now she wondered if she was lucky that Stacy hadn't targeted her._

In front of her, Garcia placed down a file. "Possible case in Rhode Island," she hastily gave details, "Three murders, one disappearance. I'll let you take a look."

"Thanks Garcia." JJ smiled up at her, her thoughts still preoccupied by the Winchesters.

As Garcia left, she tried focusing her mind on something better, as she always did when handing over case files. Her mind drifted off to when she had had a break in San Francisco.

_Gideon had left just three weeks prior and she wanted some time off to try and think straight. She hadn't had a vacation since her parents were still alive. Maybe going back to California was a big risk for Penelope, but she still missed the California sun. And anyway, San Francisco was still a cultural place._

**26th April 2005**

Penelope had been eating some fries on a bench overlooking the bay, hoping that she wouldn't get sunburn or that seagulls would steal her chips. When she had been little, she had tried scaring away some that had attacked her picnic table. She had felt proud of herself before her stepfather had told her off for that.

She heard loud sniggering and looked up. On a nearby bench sat a couple. She recognized the girl; she was Jessica, who had worked at the nearby hotel. Penelope didn't know Jessica very well, only enough to know her in passing from before Penelope had been arrested by the FBI for hacking. But there was no mistaking Jessica's smile or her sweet laugh.

Penelope wondered who the boy was with her. Jessica had briefly mentioned before about having a boyfriend in college, so Penelope assumed this was him. They definitely seemed in love.

A few months later, Garcia had been working late at her desk when she skimmed through a random news article. She had sat up straight when she read that there had been a fire at Stanford University. Jessica was dead. Her boyfriend, Sam Winchester, was wanted for questioning. That had only been the first article Penelope had read concerning either of the infamous Winchesters. The case had seemed clear-cut, about a delusional budding serial killer murdering his girlfriend.

_But now, as Garcia walked through Quantico's halls, she wondered what actually had killed Jessica._

**December 10th 2014**  
**2.45am**

As Hotch stirred in bed when the phone rang, he seriously hoped that it wasn't another case. He was already exhausted from having three cases in two weeks, even if one was technically off-record.

Then he jolted up when he saw that it was Emily's caller ID.

"Emily?" he asked, "What is it?"

"I heard what happened," she answered with a shaking voice, "That you had two of the worst serial killers in American history and they got away."

The Winchesters…

"Emily," he had no idea where to start, "They – I really don't know how I can explain this –"

"I've been looking over the Winchesters for a while now," her voice suddenly grew cold, "When Hendrickson died, he – he had just sent over a voicemail to Strauss. I managed to listen first. I was in her office when it came up on screen. Don't ask me why I was in there. But –" Emily's voice faltered for a second, "He said that there was more to the Winchesters than we'd think. That he was leaving the BAU, taking early retirement. I – I've never told anyone this, Hotch, but I met the Winchesters. Just weeks later."

**3rd March 2008**

Emily had been sitting at a diner just outside Washington, somewhere between Quantico and the city. Twirling the spaghetti on her fork, she rested her head on her closed fist as she counted yet another day of her oven being broken. At first having takeaways seemed enjoyable, but after the tenth or twelfth it just became weary.

Getting up for another soda refill, she was almost knocked over by a much taller man. "Sorry!" he apologized as he picked his prewrapped food from the floor. Emily helped him, feeling bad even though part of her said that she shouldn't be. She sat back in her seat after she watched him walk over to another table.

She squinted at the two men sitting at that table. She swore she knew those two, but couldn't place it.

It wasn't until Emily was back home that she realized. She had been right by the murderous Winchesters and they slipped from her grasp.

She felt like slapping herself. But remembering Hendrickson's message, she thought again about those two.

The same words kept coming back to her – innocent…hunters…supernatural…demons. Normally Emily would have said these were the ravings of a madman, but this had come from Hendrickson, the agent who could find a needle in a stack of pins.

Emily replayed the voice message in her head, wondering exactly those two were.

_How there had been the opportunity to delve further, turn her world upside down. But she had stayed safe, stayed unaware. Had she made the right decision?_

"Was it true?" she asked Hotch when she had finished.

He was silent, before he breathed out slowly and nodded as he confirmed, "Yes, Emily."

"OK. Thank you." She hung up and Hotch placed the phone back on his bedside table. In the dim light, he could work out the sigil he had drawn in Jack's red crayon on the wall.

Aaron often wondered how safe the world would be without the Bureau.

Now he wondered how safe anyone was without people like the Winchesters.

Far away, but still close enough, a figure sat on a stone ledge, feet resting on the floor beneath, one arm leaning on his leg and the other hand holding a lighter, slowly making the flame go in and out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

His time at the Bureau had been too short. His time in Crowley's lair was boring. Even watching Crowley and Rowena bicker, with her name-calling and laughter, got tiring after a short while. For now, Kelpie was content with playing with an abandoned lighter.

Seeing in Spencer's form, the shapeshifter found the cogs inside whirring. A faster speed than before he had mirrored the young agent. He enjoyed this body too much to shed the skin.

No, let Crowley stew in his own juice for a few weeks, then go ahead and get even.

In. Out.

Have what was his and nobody else's.

Have his revenge on the team, on the Winchesters even more.

Kelpie smirked as he let his delight flood through.

He was going to win.

Out.


End file.
